Windows not letting me

Morning all,

I havening a nightmare with Windows so I'm appealing to anyone who can help me work this out :)


My problem started about 8 months ago, I suspect after a windows update. Normally I used to use windows hello to access my computer. It stopped working as apparently I didn't have a pin set up, which i did. It saws you need to set up a pin to use windows hello but the option to set one up does not work. In addition, my password doesn't work and I'm locked out.

I was able to set up a separate windows account, linked to my hotmail account, so I could continue to use my computer. Unfortunately, whenever I try to make a change to that computer it asks for the admin password. I never had to use my password with windows when I used hello and although I didn't use I'm pretty sure it's one of my more used passwords, none of which work.

I didn't use a USB stick to back up my password and I have no idea what to do?

I dont want to start from scratch as I have loads of software I use to access work and it's would be an ordeal to get IT to get it working again.

Any help appreciated

Any help is appreciated.

Hi,

Is it a work computer provided by your company ?

Is the machine connected to a domain ?

Is bitlocker or encrypted EFS enabled ? (You will loose access to these files with this procedure) You must have your recovery key

If your answer is "no" to all of the above...

You can use the old Utilman trick to reset your current password

Code:

Boot a windows installation media.

Once at the setup prompt press SHIFT+F10, to open a cmd prompt.

Replace Utilman.exe with cmd.exe in system32. Modify paths as needed... 

Move C:\windows\system32\utilman.exe C:\windows\system32\utilman.exe.bak
Copy C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe C:\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Reboot your computer.

wpeutil reboot

Remove boot media and let the computer start normally.

On the windows sign-in page click on the Utility Manager icon.


A cmd prompt will open instead of the utility manager, Ignore the error messages returned at launch.

You can now add new users and put them in administrators group.

Net user UserName /add
Net localgroup administrators UserName /add

Verify if your user is created correctly.

net user UserName

You need to restart the computer to make them available in the sign-in page.

Or you can change your current admin password.

Net user UseName NewPassword

You can login with the new password immediately. 

This procedure will also reset your PIN association and should recover after first login with the new password.
Don't forget to restore the original utilman.exe, to prevent any further access to the console with this method.

If you go to a local computer shop near you, there's big chances they are they gonna use this trick.
It Works from Vista and up, I haven't tried it on Windows 11 but I'm pretty sure it works too.
I also saw MS professionals giving this advice themselves

Turn on the admin account through another account usually via command prompt via booting into the emergency mode ( F8 or F10 or is it F1 ??? ).

A. Via the command prompt you have to set the administrative password and or the password to your main account. Even strip them of the password to gain access if possible. I forget the commands and lingo.

or

B. Gain access to the safe mode and or administrative account. Turn it on, set a password and or login.

Make your changes their.

C. If not downgrade and roll-back to the previous version and be happy.